Broken Blood
by UncommonValour
Summary: "I remember the moment I finally learnt the truth with excruciatingly vivid clarity" What if Hermione's entire life had been a meticulously planned cover up - her true heritage shrouded in the blackest of blood..What if her real father was none other than Voldemort himself - would it ruin her, or make her infinitely stronger? Draco has answers, and the line between friend&foe blurs
1. Prologue

**Authors Note**

Hey readers, so this is my first Harry Potter fic, and I'm a little nervous about it but also excited to see where the concept behind this story takes me! I have a good idea of what I want to happen but I'm taking it as it comes so please bear with me :)

This is set in their sixth year at Hogwarts, and will eventually be a Hermione/Draco story. I will probably rate it M just in case.. Sorry about the short first chapter but I have much, much more planned..

Thanks for reading!

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**Prologue**

I remember the moment I finally learnt the truth with excruciatingly vivid clarity.

The moment that my world came undone, imploding on itself - everything I thought I knew no longer making a shred of sense, or even mattering.

Shaken to my core, I remember my legs involuntarily collapsing me into a waiting armchair. He had known I would need it. Dumbledore. He had known everything. And I stared at him.

Uncomprehending.

Horrified.

Nauseous.

The vast swathe of emotions rendering me dumb, too many to name.

_No. _

White knuckled fingers gripping the arms of the chair, I had managed to stammer a reply.

"But I.. I _can't_ be! It must be a mistake! He.. He isn't – couldn't be.. It's not possible!"

I was pleading with him. Begging him with my entire being to not let it be true. Imploring him to rescind his closing statement.

Then my mind began rationalising, pulling the fractured edges of my brain back together.

"No, but he.. He never had any children! There's no record of.. It just isn't true!"

I was petulant, words spilling from my lips, denial coursing through my veins. He had spoken to me then. Bushy eyebrows knit together in… In what? Concern? Scrutiny?

"Miss. Granger... I know it may be difficult for you to accept at this precise moment, but accept it you must! The truth – _this_ truth, no matter how horrible or confusing it may seem now, could indeed turn out to be what saves you." Pausing for a second, he appeared to consider his own words. "It could indeed be what saves us all…"

And I think it sunk in then. How could it not have? I had all the evidence, all the _facts. _Dumbledore had made damn sure I couldn't refute the truth.

_Voldemort. _

The man – the _creature_ – I had feared so deeply, for so long, he who had destroyed so many people's lives, killing, crushing, obliterating…

Was my father.

A roiling, vicious hysteria gripped me then, and suddenly I couldn't breath. I remember my vision beginning to darken and blur towards the edges as I allowed myself to slide away, floating towards a blissful stupor.

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**Glad you managed to get this far and I hope you enjoyed it, next chapter up soon, any reviews are very welcome :)**


	2. Chapter 1

**Authors Note**

Hey guys, sorry this has taken a few days to go up - I changed my mind whilst writing it a few times.. I've decided to have this chapter set before the prologue to set the scene so to speak, give you an idea of Hermione before the revelation. It's a bit of a slow one but things pick up in chapter 2!

Thanks for reading :)

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**A few hours earlier...**

Ron was talking, and this time I wasn't listening. Not even trying. Clearly I had better things to do..

It was beautifully sunny that morning, and if there was one thing that could take me away from reality for a second it was closing my eyes, tipping my head back and basking in the gentle heat of the sun. Seeing nothing except the delicate, pinky hues of my closed eyelids.. Feeling nothing but the subtle, tantalising sensation of warmth on my skin..

I had always been somewhat in awe of the sun - totally unexplainable, even by magic, just a natural, wonderful phenomenon. As a child I spent much of my summers camped out in the garden, armed with books, biscuits and suncream, utterly determined to get as much sunlight as possible. My mum always maintained that I didn't belong in the cold, damp, grey that was England; I belonged somewhere far, far away, in a place where it was sunny all year round.

Ron's impatient nudge bought me back to reality.

"Are you even listening? Snape's gonna kill me!" Sighing, I allowed my eyes to flicker open, immediately confronted with his wide-eyed, pleading face pushed up close to mine. I had to laugh. "Well I'm glad you find it so funny Hermione!" He grumped, "You've had your essay written for weeks! _Some _of us have had Quidditch practice, and.. And, well.. Other things!"

I raised an eyebrow at him testily.

"Ron, it's hardly _my_ fault that you've spent the last few weeks glued to either your broom or Lavender, so why, might I ask, do _I_ now have to pick up the slack..? Me, of all people!"

So I could begrudgingly admit to myself that I was still a little sore when it came to Lavender. The feelings of rejection and humiliation surrounding that particular episode had worn off fairly quickly, followed by a reluctant acceptance, but I was left with a profound disappointment in myself. I had always doggedly pursued all of my goals, pushing myself to get to whatever point I felt I needed to be, achieving everything I felt I needed to achieve – yet where life seemed most important, I had failed. Failed to be honest with the one person who made my heart beat just that tiny bit faster. The person who bought a pleasant flush to my cheeks when his hand accidentally brushed mine. The person whose open, friendly face never failed to make me smile.

And why had I failed you might ask..?

Because I couldn't bring myself to tell him how I felt. Because where it mattered the most I had been a coward. Too afraid of rejection, too afraid of what people might _say._

So much for Gryffindor courage.

I shook off the old memories and considered what I'd just said to him, immediately regretful. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. He was watching me carefully, tight-lipped, serious.

I accessed my next words. I wasn't actually angry with him at this precise moment – not about Lavender anyway, more about being interrupted during my 'sun time.' I was genuinely pleased that he was so happy with her, in a sad, wistful sort of way, and I shouldn't have even bought her up. Although, he really shouldn't have intruded on my morning ritual of watching the sunrise.. Most mornings I would get up early enough to watch the sun climb over the mountains that ringed the lake, relishing those first tentative, immature rays as they played over the smooth surface of the water. My favourite spot to sit was on top of a large, smooth rock on the waterfront – just big enough to accommodate me, and whatever books or work I had chosen to bring.

Today however, Ron and I were sandwiched on said rock and it was a whole lot more uncomfortable than it would have been if I were alone. Some things were meant to be private, and this was most definitely a time I preferred to be alone.. It was a rare occasion that Harry or Ron would come with me, mostly they understood, but it seemed that today Ron's need for assistance outweighed my need for privacy.

"Look, don't worry about it – I'm sure it's not as shoddy as you think it is," I said finally, gently. "Leave it with me and I'll have a look over it at breakfast.." The relief on his face was palpable, and that vast, infectious grin that I so adored spread across his face.

"Brilliant!" Always so enthusiastic my Ron.. "You're a life saver Hermione! Defence against the dark arts isn't until this afternoon so anything you think I need to add I've still got time. Merlin, I thought I really was screwed for a second then, don't know what I would have done if you'd said no!" I considered suggesting he ask Lavender for help, but squashed that catty feeling instantly, inwardly scolding myself. He knew I didn't see her as being particularly gifted scholarly and I had just resolved myself to curb my more scathing comments.. Ron blathered on eagerly, but once again I had stopped listening.

The sun was rising higher in the sky, causing the lake to sparkle distractingly. It would nearly be time for breakfast. Resigning myself to the fact that my usually peaceful, serene start to the day had been ruined, I stood up, stretched and turned to interrupt and offer a small smile.

"Breakfast then..? Your tummy's been rumbling for the past ten minutes.." He gave me that grin once more. He was nothing if predictable and I had to laugh at him again, I held out my hand to pull him up, noting curiously that this time my heart barely skipped at his touch.

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I didn't eat much at breakfast. Mostly I was trying to decipher the ink splodges and scrawled letters that Ron called "words.." Helping him with schoolwork was always a vastly frustrating task, it wasn't that he was unintelligent; he just seemed to have an utterly different way of expressing himself to the rest of us.

Chewing my croissant half heartedly, I squinted at the first line of the essay.. _If someone were to ask me whether mermaids should be integrated into our society I would reply with integrity. _I snorted, quickly incorporating it into a cough as Ron looked at me in consternation. He had a silly habit of just plonking complicated sounding words in randomly, trying to give his work a bit more credibility. This was going to take some time..

"I think I'm going to finish looking at this in the library, make a few notes on where I think it needs improvement.. Meet me during break?" I started to stand up, collecting the crumpled sheets of parchment. Ron cheerily agreed through a mouthful of cornflakes. It turned out I had excellent timing, for just as I stood up to leave, Lavender bounced up, squeezing herself chummily in between Ron and Harry. Harry shot me a sympathetic look and began concentrating very hard on buttering his toast.

"See you later guys.. Oh, and Harry don't forget you need to send an owl to Lupin to tell him to meet us this Thursday instead of next!" I had started walking away, but for the last part I turned around, just in time to see Lavender start peppering sloppy kisses all over Ron's face, fingers stroking at his neck.

_Eurghhh. _Enough already. I wasn't a fan of PDAs at the best of times, and especially not when it was Ron and Lavender.. I spun around quickly, determinedly heading for the doors. _Too early in the morning for that.. _I kept my head down to hide my grimace, failing to notice the other person walking through the doors at the same time. I barrelled into them blindly and rebounded off of their chest, losing my grip on my books and scattering the pages of Ron's essay. Embarrassed I dropped to my knees, fingers scrabbling to collect my possessions, I looked up with an apology on my lips – but it froze on the way out as I realised just who I had bumped into.

"Well, that _is _a shitty way to start my day.. I'll probably smell of mud for hours – thanks a bunch Granger."

_Malfoy..._

I stood up crossly, his sneering, ratty face was one of the last things I needed right now. This morning had been annoying enough.

"Oh hilarious Malfoy, think of that all on your own did you? How sweet.." I bent to pick up the rest of my things, blithely ignoring the flush of anger on his face.

"Just watch where you're going Granger, I don't need anyone seeing us touching," he hissed down at me "_I _have a reputation to uphold.."

"You really don't need to worry, I would _never _intentionally touch you – I prefer my hands slime free thanks.." Standing, I sidestepped around him to prove my point. As I walked away he snorted derisively, spitting his vicious last words after me.

"Don't get up on my account – I think I much prefer you on your knees where you belong.."

Some things never changed… At least it was consistent between us. Our mutual hatred and disgust had been an indelible feature of the past five years. I guess we used each other as punching bags, and to an extent I was pretty much used to it. He was a vile, ignorant git, but in reality I knew better than to let him get to me by now – I'd had the same old crap from him for the past five years, and he really needed some new material…

As I headed towards the library I realised I actually felt a bit better, my confrontation with Malfoy seemed to have alleviated some of the stress and irritation caused by Ron. I allowed myself to smile as I threaded my way through the hungry students making their way to breakfast.

"Miss. Granger!" McGonagall's voice echoed down the corridor after me "Miss. Granger! The headmaster would like to see you in his office, now please!"

If I had known exactly what it was that the headmaster wanted to speak to me about I might not have been so eager to comply. I might have gone back outside to enjoy those few innocent, warming rays of sunshine.

Such as it was, I shrugged, nodded and changed direction, heading towards Dumbledore's office. Unknowingly changing the direction of my life irrevocably.

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**Hope you enjoyed it, next chapter up soon!**


	3. Chapter 2

**Hey guys, I am so sorry this has taken me so long to update.. I have been majorly distracted - moved house, got a new job etc.. But yeah, it was also a bit of a tough one to get out - I knew what I wanted to say but had a bit of a writer's block trying to get it into words!**

**This is a lot shorter than I wanted this chapter to be, I'm hoping future ones will be a bit longer but this was just so emotionally charged I think it needed to be a standalone..**

**Anyway, thanks for reading - reviews muchly appreciated :)**

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For the first time in my life I felt dumb. Utterly thick. No matter how hard I tried I simply could not comprehend what had just happened. My mind stubbornly refused to untangle and reassemble the last ten minutes.

I didn't just feel dumb, I felt obliterated. My mind, body, even my _magic_ refusing to cooperate.

I surprised even myself by managing to mutter a string of shell-shocked words to the headmaster, before stumbling blindly out of his office.

A few choice facts and sentences echoed spasmodically in my brain as I blundered down the hallway, heading anywhere and nowhere..

"_Lord Voldemort died without ever knowing his child existed…Her mother came to us in the throes of labour, begging us to protect her baby…."_

Merlin, I could barely see.. Where was I going?

"_The child's mother did not survive the birth…."_

How did I get outside..

"_Since that very day we have protected her, kept her safe, hidden, out of harms way….Placed her in the care of muggles…."_

I shook my head, senseless fingers clutching at my bag, ploughing a line through a group of first years.

"_We made sure her true heritage was known by next to none….Carefully guided her life choices…."_

It was raining. Like some stupid scene in a film. Except this wasn't a film, this was my horrific excuse for a life.

"_Guided her friend choices…."_

Now I was running. Why? I couldn't run from the truth.

"_We hid the truth from her….For her own safety….She could never know….Voldemort could never know about her."_

I stopped abruptly, dimly registering that I had somehow reached the forbidden forest.

"_The child was you, Miss. Granger…."_

My legs buckled.

"_I'm so sorry to have to tell you like this….We all agreed that it would be before your seventeenth birthday…."_

And so I knelt there. The mud and the rain doing nothing to dull the sharp sensation of.. Of what?

Of being wrong.

That's it. I.. Was _wrong. _Everything about me was wrong, a lie. My whole existence was just some farcical imitation of a life.

Dumbledore, the Weasleys – even Snape.. They had all _known _about me this entire time, known who I was – _what _I was, and they had hidden it from me. Harboured me like some _fugitive_..

My breath hitched in my chest, I could feel my throat closing. I had to calm down. Calm _down _Hermione. Now.

I wasn't a fugitive, I couldn't think like that. They had all been good to me, helped me! Especially the Weasleys.. Oh! But did that mean.. _Ron_..? Did he..?

And my breathing caught again, painfully. My head swam and panic bought me forward onto all fours, choking for air.

Did Ron know? Had he been chosen for me by the headmaster to _guide_ me..? Oh God. And Harry.. Both of them. They must have been. Who better to lead me down the right path than the boy who defeated Voldemort himself? He would have been the perfect candidate to stop me following in the footsteps of.. My father. I shuddered involuntarily. The thought too repulsive to stay contained in just my mind.

I dug my fingers into the mud, trying to fight the hysteria that had all but clouded my thoughts. I gulped a deep, shuddering breath. I needed to ground myself – literally. I took another deep breath, allowing myself the feel the moisture trickling down the back of my neck. Another breath. I felt the squelchy, cloying texture of the ground beneath my fingers. Another. My eyes flickered open to look at my trembling, filthy hands. One more. I shakily sat back onto my haunches.

I made a brave attempt to gather and rally my thoughts. After all, this was extremely unlike me.. So out of control, running off into the forest like that – and during lesson hours! Besides, look at my robes, I was a mess – what would my mum say if she could see me like this hmm?

Oh.. Mum.

I scrunched my eyes shut tightly. No I couldn't lie to myself, act like nothing had changed, _everything _had changed. She wasn't my real mum, just like my dad wasn't my real dad. I wondered if they knew I wasn't their biological daughter. Dumbledore hadn't been too clear on some of the details, he had just said that I had been entrusted into the care of a respectable, loving and _normal _muggle family. Maybe they had implanted false memories, made them believe I was truly theirs..

I winced, still not wanting to believe any of it. But I needed to, I needed to get my head around this as best I could, and fast – I could feel myself desperately wanting to go back to that dark, mindless, comforting hysteria. So what did I know – what were the cold, hard facts that my mind would be unable to ignore.. I drew them to the front of my thoughts.

On the night of September 19th 1979, a witch in the midst of labour had come to Hogwarts, seeking help. She claimed to be carrying the child of Lord Voldemort, begging Dumbledore and the other professors to give her protection and shelter, insisting that he did not know about her pregnancy. At a loss they had taken her in, doing all that they could to help her, but she had died during the birth.

They had answered the obvious question about her sanity by casting a paternity test spell – they retrieved one of the only remaining items belonging to Tom Riddle left at Hogwarts, an old broomstick. The test was simple – a hair from the baby's head along with part of an object belonging to the father were combined and placed into a cauldron with a few choice ingredients. Next the right words were uttered and a puff of smoke was expelled. The colour of this smoke determined whether the baby belonged to the owner of the item, which in this case, she did.

On realising that the child was in fact Lord Voldemort's biological daughter the gathered professors faced a difficult decision. The unanimous view was that the baby was innocent and needed to be protected – but how best to do so..? If she remained in the wizarding world she hazarded being discovered, either by supporters of her father, or by the ministry – both factions may seek to use her to their advantage. They decided to keep her as safe as possible, ignorant of her true heritage and ability.

"_We knew even then, without a shadow of a doubt, that you would grow up to be an incredibly gifted, remarkable young woman.." _Dumbledore had said gravely, eyes locked onto mine. "_We weren't wrong."_ He had studied my face. _"No matter what Lord Voldemort may have been when he died, we all begin life as innocent babies and he was no exception. Despite all his grave shortcomings, he truly was an extraordinary wizard – and you, his daughter, have proved that you too are extraordinary, although in quite the opposite fashion to him."_

I wondered incredulously if the last part was meant to make me feel better. Cushion the hefty blow I had just received. I can't say it had succeeded in any way.. Dumbledore had to have known that finding out you had been lied to your entire life, and you were in fact the only daughter of the most nefarious, _evil _wizard to have ever lived was not a blow that one could soften. In any way whatsoever.

Resenting Dumbledore felt good, which was a tremendous relief from the constant hammering of hurt, confusion and self hatred that beat upon my senses. Despite any complaints I might have with how he told me, I could not, in fact, refute the truth of what he had told me.

Voldemort was my father. My mother, a nameless witch, had died giving birth to me. Many of the adults in my life knew about my real parents, but had chosen to hide and protect me from the day of my birth.

There were still things I didn't know for sure.. Did Ron and Harry know? Or were they just as clueless as I had been..? The thought that they might be in the same boat as me allowed a small flutter of hope to bloom in my heart.

I looked down at my grimy hands. They rested, palms up on my thighs. I had always laughed when I looked at my mother's hands growing up, insisting I just _had _to be adopted – there was no way that she could have those thick, strong fingers when I had such long, spindly ones.. I curled those spindly fingers into fists. Did my birth mother have these hands? Or was it my birth father who had given them to me.. New waves of revulsion washed over me, as various other comparisons thrust themselves into my mind, shuddering I pushed them away.

Vaguely I realised that my fists were still tightly clenched, fingernails digging viciously into my palms. Delicately I opened my hands, wincing at the angry red crescents marring the skin. The sight of my blood was sobering. I tried once more the gather my thoughts, taking stock of where I was. I looked up at the forest ceiling, wondering when it had stopped raining. A small ray of sunlight filtered in through the thick canopy of trees, not doing much to illuminate the area, but it was enough for me to scramble unsteadily to my feet.

I wasn't doing myself any good being out here. I was soaked through and utterly covered in mud. Most of my body ached and I didn't want to even _think _about what my hair looked like.. I looked around for my bag, relieved to find it just a few feet away. After a brief, half-hearted attempt to rid myself of some of the dirt clinging to my general person, I started towards the castle, trying not to pay too much attention to the twinges in my ankle. I must have twisted it on that ridiculous run here..

I limped slowly, wearily, methodically, towards the gates. There was no part of me that actually wanted to go back in there. No part of me that actually wanted to attempt to reintegrate myself into normality. The idea of being faced with a comfortable, happy routine – full of friendships and memories based on lies, a life that was no longer mine, was sickening.

How could I pretend that anything was the same? I wasn't the same Hermione that had breezed into the headmaster's office that morning. I had left a vital, naïve part of me behind, slumped brokenly in the armchair, beseeching Dumbledore to say it wasn't so..

Steeling myself I moved faster, before I could change my mind. That was all I could do, steel myself.. Because as broken as I felt now, I was clear headed enough to know that this was a heartache that was far from over, and I would need all of my strength to weather it.

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**Hope you enjoyed it, next chapter up soon!**


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